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Reflection ( July 06, 2015 )

Last July 6, 2015. We supposed to do our first pitching, well since no one have the idea of pitching presentation, our facilitator allow us to do/make a PowerPoint presentation of our innovative ideas. The fastfood, mall, hotel and school. Honestly, I’ve just finished polishing my ideas couple of hours before our 8am class starts. To share my innovative ideas, for the fastfood restaurants, I call my idea chat2order. Building this idea comes from many experiences and knowledge from friends and family. Falling in a long line and so hungry, what every costumers’ uncomfortably feels. Every fast-food need be more fast, what hungry costumers demand. Foods took so long to deliver and you a costumers is hungry already. It much more irritating if your order is more delayed because of any instances. So to overcome this issues, I created the idea “chat2order” app. This app can be used only for android phone users. The app has a user-friendly interface, for easy to use purposes. It help costumer to order via online. You as a costumer user of the app just come to your favorite fast-food eat your order and good to go. This app help can busy people, for example if you’re at a mall, shopping. Suddenly your feel hunger, you can use the app to order your food, after your shopping you just go there and eat. Another example is, if you’re having a meet up with someone for maybe a dinner, you can use the app to order food while you’re on your way. I’ve shared this idea with my classmate, just to have an idea if this idea fits to be my pitching pieces, but because I was struggled answering her questions, I just make new one. Not disregarding my other idea but I’m just confident of that idea, yet I can’t defend it. Next is my innovative idea for mall, the smart-CCTV, an innovated closed-circuit television that have a database that uses augmented reality that knows who’s that particular person captured by the camera. This idea lacks of conclusion, hence I’m not satisfy to share it. Next is for hotel’s idea, the “Room-to-go” is an app where people like business man should have because they’re assigned in different places and some places they were assigned, they are not familiar. For example, a Cebuano business man was assigned here in Davao City that is no knowledge of different places in the city and need to rest for the next day. Using the app, that particular business can find a suited place to stay. With his/her car, or maybe grab a taxi he/she can easily go to his/her selected hotel and worry free because of the app’s gps. The app is basically needs an android device and an internet connection. The app’s user interface is easy to use. There’s a search engine where you can find whether the nearest and affordable hotel, maybe nearest and luxury hotel, or whatever you demand the app will surely help you. After searching for your demanded room (hotel) you can see room’s price and room’s screenshots. In this idea, I am certain that this is so generic and not so confident with it. Lastly for the school, an app called “Book-e”, I observed this problem with my younger sister who is just sharing a book with her classmate, the case is their school is lacking of books, so she needs to adjust because she is just only studying in a public school. She and her classmate divide the book to bring at home, her classmate brings the math, science and English while my sister have the Filipino and hekasi. It is not fair, when she have an assignment with math, she don’t have a notes to follow. So it comes the idea of “Book e”, this is an app where every book a child needs have a soft copy. As long as you can afford an android device, you can have this app. The Concept is basically, the child already have a copy of the book for assignment and study use with the guidance of the parents, of course at school they still use the book for them not to abuse the phone (children’s logic use the phone to play or text not to use as a book). But of course, it is the parents’ liability on how they use the app. Surely a teacher should know about this app because they are the one giving a copy to a parent. The process is, the teacher has the app including all the books the school offered, they just give a copy through Bluetooth. For this idea, I feel I can’t defend it properly.

Well, back to the meeting. Our facilitator give us a few minutes to make a presentation from our hard copy to a PowerPoint presentation. Observing that how many minutes pass and still no one had ever finished so he just stopped us on what we are doing and start a lesson. Well the lesson starts with a 3 groups of pictures with 2 pictures each group. The column shows a picture of no vacancy and a full slot of employee. Our facilitator explains to us that it’s so hard to find job nowadays, even professional or top graduate students can’t easily find job here in the Philippines because of full employee of a company, and we should learn to make our job than to find a job. But of course, you can’t easily have a one shot jackpot, we should have to dig before to achieve. Next set of pictures is about pleasing personality, a what we call ugly and pig, well we consider it true because the first picture shows an ugly personality of a person who’s just don’t mind his/her hygiene and face to be more pleasing, it is just more an interpretation of an awakening that dealing a job application or job interview, we should be pleasing in a way that the person who we talk to love our aura, I would just want to give a sample, I’ve just come to a company for a job interview, observing that I’m just neat that their employee, I mean they just have a curly or messy or whatever hair they have while me just have a neat haircut, not underestimating that company but comparing the pleasing personality, I just shut my mouth. But of course, in terms of production and the ability of their employee I can say they’re good, but of course there are still good looking and pretty. In the second picture, that I’ve just said a pig, well that picture shows a person who’s lazy and unproductive. A not good image of a model for the next generation. The last set of picture shows about a rally, I think. Not so sure but, this shows what our economy dealing with, a group of fierce people who are demanding something for their right, fight for what they should deserve.

For the next slides, I’m not sure what goes first, so I share what I’ve learned randomly. So now I will discuss about HELF which is stands for Human Resources, Environment, Laws and Policies and Financial Resources. HELF is a key towards successful technopreneurship.

To breakdown the components of HELF, to start H, Human resource, is about the people needed for your business to work. This is a very important aspect for a successful business. A business needs the right people that could contribute a lot to the company. Human resource is about establishing a group of talented people who are vital for the benefits of the business. Human resources are the thinker of the company. Human resources are the researchers, Social researchers plan, and design and manage social research projects. They use a variety of computer software packages to collect, analyze and organize information and data, which they then present to others, either in a written report or oral presentation. A variety of methods, such as interviews, questionnaires and focus groups, are used to investigate the views of population samples on specific issues. Research officers and managers work with team members to identify project goals, research methods, variables, and other test parameters. They also choose how to collect data and offer recommendations on evaluating the project. Research officers and managers often make research schedules to monitor the activities of research teams. During the research project, officers and managers usually review gathered research and analyze various sets of data. They may also interpret data and start writing reports. Many research officers and managers also verify that information on databases remains secure, as well as ensure that all team members complete their tasks and work cooperatively with the team. Human resources are the idea generator, Innovation involves more than just great ideas. We need faith, hard work and a laser sharp focus for the end result to keep persisting for our vision in the face of roadblocks. We tend to see the end result of a creative idea in awe, but what we don’t see are the actions, hard work and persistence behind the scene to make the vision a reality. Under the spell of inhibition, we feel limited and stuck. We need to free ourselves from these mind-created constraints by removing assumptions and restrictions. This is what we refer to when we say “think outside the box”. Encourage ourselves to be open to new ideas and solutions without setting limiting beliefs. Remember, innovation is more about psychology than intellect. I believe that part of the reason why we create self-imposed inhibition is due to our fear of failure. Expect that some ideas will fail in the process of learning. Build prototypes often, test them out on people, gather feedback, and make incremental changes. Rather than treating the mistakes as failures, think of them as experiments. “Experiment is the expected failure to deliberately learn something.” (Scott Berkun). Instead of punishing yourself for the failures, accept them, then take your newfound knowledge and put it towards finding the best solution. Live up to your goal of producing the best result, but understand you might hit roadblocks along the way. Our environment can and does affect how we feel. The more relaxed and calm we are internally, the more receptive we are to tap into our flowing creativity. This is why ideas sometimes come to us in the shower or while we’re alone. Each of us has different triggers to access our creative energy. I get into the ‘creative zone’ from sitting at my dining table, with a warm cup of chai, and my noise-canceling headphones. Many great thinkers go on long walks to help them solve problems. Experiment and find what works for you. Human resources are the innovator, Understand why traditional and familiar business models are no longer reliable in today’s business context. Master new approaches to thinking about innovation. To craft better strategy in the face of great uncertainty. Acquire conceptual frameworks to make your innovation and strategic thinking more effective. Identify partners who will be influential in creating the future you will be competing in. Employ prototyping as a way of taking bigger chances without incurring bigger risk. Hone your personal idea hunting skills. Develop leadership insights for dealing with great uncertainty. Maximize the talent contributions of those around you. Launch a coherent and innovative proposal in your current work environment. Next is E, Environment, it is very important for a technopreneur to know the environment of the business we choose. For IT field, the environment revolves around the modern technology that focuses more on software, networking and of course, innovation. So it is very important to us to be updated about the technology because this is the field we IT undergo. By knowing your environment it would be easy to solve problems or crisis that may arise. From further research, the elements of Environmental Components consists of science parts that involves the initial presentation of a product and viewing of the products; it also includes the incubation centers, the academic institutions, research and development centers, internet access, communication and other support services, and of geographic accessibility or the location. One good example of the environment component are the incubation hubs. Incubation hub are programs that provide incubation services to assist technology start-ups in their vulnerable stages, enabling them to grow and flourish. It supports office space and facilities, technical and management assistance, promotion and development assistance, business support and financial aid package. The third one is L means Laws and Policies, in a business it is necessary to have laws and policies for your employees to be discipline, without this individuals will not be to function properly if they can do whatever they want .Thus having Laws and Policies will gives peace and order in a business. Laws and Policies also compose of Intellectual Property rights, Intellectual Property (IP) refers to the protection of creations of the mind, which have both a moral and a commercial value. IP law typically grants the author of an intellectual creation exclusive rights for exploiting and benefiting from their creation. However, these rights, also called monopoly right of exploitation, are limited in scope, duration and geographical extent. IP protection is intended to stimulate the creativity of the human mind for the benefit of all by ensuring that the advantages derived from exploiting a creation benefit the creator. This will encourage creative activity and allow investors in research and development a fair return on their investment. IP confers on individuals, enterprises or other entities the right to exclude others from the use of their creations. Consequently, intellectual property rights (IPRs) may have a direct and substantial impact on industry and trade as the owner of an IPR may – through the enforcement of such a right – prevent the manufacture, use or sale of a product which incorporates the IPR. For this reason control over the intangible asset (IPR) connotes control of the product and markets. IP protection encourages the publication, distribution and disclosure of the creation to the public, rather than keeping it secret while at the same time encouraging commercial enterprises to select creative works for exploitation. Intellectual property legal titles relates to the acquisition and use of a range of rights covering different type of creations. These may be industrial or literary and artistic. Technology Licensing Office, Technology licensing only occurs when one of the parties owns valuable intangible assets, known as Intellectual Property (IP). Technology licensing occurs in the context of a business relationship in which other agreements are often important. Technology licensing negotiations, like all negotiations, have sides (parties) whose interests are different, but must coincide in some ways. Technology licensing involves reaching agreement on a complex set of terms. Legal Services are the services involving legal or law related matters like issue of legal opinion, filing, pleading and defending of law suits etc. by a lawyer or attorney practicing law related services. Lastly the F, Financial, allows the business to develop another opportunities, employ workers which is needed for your business to run, by the proper use of your finance is the key for your business to be successful. Of course, a business should have an Investor, A Financial Services, Business sectors, Funding Agencies.

Next to discuss is the SEED or Self-Mastery, Environment Mastery, Enterprise Mastery and Development of Business Plan. Starting a venture is only the beginning of an exciting journey, a journey that will take you from the conceptualization of an idea all the way to running a successful enterprise. This journey will not be easy. It will require a lot of effort. You have to determine the type of business to run, strategic visioning, building a viable business model, bringing in co-founders and other talent to work on various aspects of the business such as client acquisition, channel partnership formation, access to markets and positioning the business so that you can achieve competitive advantage. All these tasks can be daunting especially if you are a single founder trying to start your venture.

Our facilitator also cite about the difference of technopreneur from entrepreneur. To discuss, first Technological Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship in a technology, a process of merging technology process and entrepreneurial talents and skills. By the way, who is technopreneur? A person who destroy the existing economic order (creative destruction) by introducing new products and services, by creating new forms of organizations and by exploiting new raw materials. Someone who perceives an opportunity and creates an organization to pursue it. Person who undertake risks ( by creating an enterprise or business) that has a chance of profit or success technopreneurship distinguishes themselves through their ability to accumulate and manage knowledge as well as their ability to mobilize resources to achieve a specified business or social goal. A bold, imaginative, deviator from established business methods who constantly seeks the opportunity to commercialize new products, technologies processes and arrangements. Distinguishes logic from tradition, common tradition from prejudice, prejudice from common sense and common sense from nonsense while integrating variety of ideas from diverse groups and discipline. Skilled in applied creativity thrive in response to challenge and lack for unconventional solutions. They experience challenges, creative visions solutions, build stories that explains their visions for and then act to the part of the solutions. They forge new paths and risk failure, but persistently seek success. To proceed, what is technopreneurship? It is creating the “New” and destroying the “Old”. New knowledge, new products, new processes, new services, new markets, new business models, new raw materials. Service firm where technology is critical to their mission, business that provides services. Delivery or design of high-tech products like computer hardware or devices. Use of technology in the delivery or conduct of normal business activities. While entrepreneurship is, a way of thinking and acting that is opportunity obsessed, holistic in approach and leadership balanced for the purpose of wealth creation. Entrepreneurship is creative destruction. Dynamic disequilibrium brought on by the innovating entrepreneur, rather than equilibrium and optimization, is the norm of a healthy economy and the central reality of economic theory and practice. The entrepreneur searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity. Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service. Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to the resources currently under one’s control.

Ultimately, there are more similarities than differences. Entrepreneurship, of all forms, follows this high-level path: Identify needs, Build products, Mitigate risks, and Take the products to market. Technopreneurs simply have a different perspective and set of tools for each step in this path and greater potential for success. Further, I’d call technopreneurship a subset of entrepreneurship. All technopreneurs are entrepreneurs, but not all entrepreneurs are technopreneurs.

Technopreneurs Are Usually Developers First. Developers have a different view of the world and this influences every aspect of the entrepreneurial path for them. From identifying needs, building products, mitigating risks, and bringing those products to market, the entire process is distinctly different. Technopreneurs Generally Need Generalists. When it comes to bringing a product to market, technopreneurs often need people on their team with far broader business skill sets. Developers are good at building stuff. We’re not so good at getting out and meeting people who could use our products. Technopreneurs are entrepreneurs with a different set of tools and greater potential for success.

Why Technopreneurship?

The very simple answer is that technopreneurship give an opportunity to all who wants to have a business and be an employer. In our generation. Technology may have big impact in our lives in fact in gives our life worth easier. There are things that should consider first the innovation where everything is the first step. Gets an idea with different ways like active search for a problem, or by chance even with the experience we can get an idea. After gathering or brainstorming of an idea the best way to do it is to showcase it through joining different competition and this is called the Triggering event. It has to be implemented and it will grow as follow. Basically, idea alone is not enough, it needs to be on market. And idea alone is not money it needs dedication and hard work. High-tech and entrepreneurial skills are driving our economy back to prosperity. Technopreneurship merging technology prowess and entrepreneurial skills. A technopreneur distinguishes logic from tradition. Technopreneurship is not a product but a process leads to the future of a community. Strategic directions or decision-making processes are becoming more demanding and complex. This requires universities, and in site professional development programs and training to produce strategic thinkers who will have skills to succeed in a rapidly changing global environment.

One of the things that I like of what our facilitator had discussed was about the pictures. When our facilitator showed us the pictures he had on the screen, he asked us what are the people doing in the pictures, as far as I remember it, the pictures was about a girl cooking, a man who was a carpenter and fixing a house and the third one is a man who has a stethoscope and a screwdriver who was fixing a computer. After showing us the pictures our instructor then asked looking at the picture what do we think that each person needed to do and complete his work and finished it, what are the materials he needed to perform his work. Of course base on the picture when you see a person cooking the basic things that you will thought that she needed is of course obviously a pot then the ingredients of the food, a knife, a spoon and a cook book that will help her cooking, we saw a carpenter doing his work it is common that he needed a hammer, nails, saw, woods and other materials, we see a doctor or who is medicating a sick computer. The point of this was that based on the picture we were able to know what the things are needed. Just a simple picture we were able to identify many things visible in the picture or not, we were able to understand the situation and we were able to analyze it and know the difference of each situations, different things that is needed and as a technopreneur we knew that we need money, materials and personnel or human resources as our facilitator also said. Of course having your own business it is not free, the materials you needed and the human resources, so you really needed the money, money is necessary, and in the business world before you have everything you have to start, even though it was little it will do but this is the hard part because you have to think everything related to your work and having a start-up business is not that easy as our facilitator said it is hypothesis testing. Not all business succeed on the first phase, only few and it depends on how you approach people and how people approach you, your company and your product, it will based on how people accept your product and not the whole time that you present a new product that people will accept and adapt to it abruptly, if you make a wrong approach or a wrong way you will most likely fail, it all depends on the acceptance of your customers. If you make it to your small business, and that would be awesome but it is not the end of it, of course you don’t want it to remain small don’t you so you would try to grow your company and like starting the business it is not that easy, one wrong step and all the hardship you did to build your company may ruin and you will be back in fair one so you should take it step by step and have so many thinking and thoughts and you should ask other people for opinions and a better ideas and when your company has overcome those hardship you will taste the sweetness of success and you will continue, so start, grow and succeed that is the phases of making your own business and company. Just like how Steve Jobs succeed from his career, he just make sense and expand his ability towards success, well it is not easy at first because he just started as a small venture, but with peoples trust and your loyalty to work, success can be achieved.

I’ve just remembered during the meeting, our facilitator said about copyleft, that there’s a copyleft. A contrast I think of copyright, so I research for it and come up with. What Is Copyleft? Copyleft is an idea. To understand it you first need to understand copyright. Copyright is a law which restricts the public’s natural right to use, modify, and share creative works such as a written report or the original sheet music for a song. It also covers works such as poetry, movies and computer software. The work may be published or unpublished but it is placed under copyright restriction the very moment the work is authored. It should, however, be noted that copyright does not cover the ideas for a work. The work has to be tangible and fixed. Works that are restricted by copyright cannot be copied or modified without the permission of the copyright holder and this includes reproducing the work in another medium. For example, if a poem has copyright restrictions someone is unable to make a derivative work in the form of a movie. The copyright restriction still exists and the permission of the copyright holder must be obtained. The holder of the copyright, therefore, has the ability to allow or exclude the public from reproducing and distributing their work. Nothing forces someone to publish their work, but once they do the public should have the right use, modify, and share it and this is normally done by way of a license. The license covers the specific terms of how others are able to use the work. Under copyleft, the author claims a copyright on the work and makes a statement in the form of a license that other people have the right to use, modify, and share the work so long as their modified versions are put under that same license and that anyone receiving a copy of the work — whether modified or not — must also be given these same rights. If someone does not follow the terms set by the copyright holder it becomes copyright infringement, which is subject to the full penalties of the legal system. Those key concepts — that modified versions must also be under the same license, and that the rights to use, modify, and share the work must be passed on to anyone that gets a copy — is what copyleft is all about. Copyright gives power to restrict what other people can do with their own copies of things. Copyleft is about restoring those rights: It takes this oppressive law, which normally restricts people and takes their rights away, and make those rights inalienable.

Another thing our facilitator said about BMC or business model canvass where, gives you the structure of a business plan without the overhead and the improvisation of a ‘back of the napkin’ sketch without the fuzziness (and coffee rings).

Formal descriptions of the business become the building blocks for its activities. Many different business conceptualizations exist; Osterwalder’s work and thesis (2010, 2004) propose a single reference model based on the similarities of a wide range of business model conceptualizations. With his business model design template, an enterprise can easily describe their business model.

Infrastructure

Key Activities: The most important activities in executing a company’s value proposition. An example for Bic would be creating an efficient supply chain to drive down costs.

Key Resources: The resources that are necessary to create value for the customer. They are considered an asset to a company, which are needed in order to sustain and support the business. These resources could be human, financial, physical and intellectual.

Partner Network: In order to optimize operations and reduce risks of a business model, organization usually cultivate buyer-supplier relationships so they can focus on their core activity. Complementary business alliances also can be considered through joint ventures, strategic alliances between competitors or non-competitors.

Offering

Value Propositions: The collection of products and services a business offers to meet the needs of its customers. According to Osterwalder, (2004), a company’s value proposition is what distinguishes itself from its competitors. The value proposition provides value through various elements such as newness, performance, customization, “getting the job done”, design, brand/status, price, cost reduction, risk reduction, accessibility, and convenience/usability.

The value propositions may be:

Quantitative- price and efficiency

Qualitative- overall customer experience and outcome

Customers

Customer Segments: To build an effective business model, a company must identify which customers it tries to serve. Various sets of customers can be segmented based on the different needs and attributes to ensure appropriate implementation of corporate strategy meets the characteristics of selected group of clients. The different types of customer segments include:

Mass Market: There is no specific segmentation for a company that follows the Mass Market element as the organization displays a wide view of potential clients. e.g. Car

Niche Market: Customer segmentation based on specialized needs and characteristics of its clients. e.g. Rolex

Segmented: A company applies additional segmentation within existing customer segment. In the segmented situation, the business may further distinguish its clients based on gender, age, and/or income.

Diversify: A business serves multiple customer segments with different needs and characteristics.

Multi-Sided Platform / Market: For a smooth day-to-day business operation, some companies will serve mutually dependent customer segment. A credit card company will provide services to credit card holders while simultaneously assisting merchants who accept those credit cards.

Channels: A company can deliver its value proposition to its targeted customers through different channels. Effective channels will distribute a company’s value proposition in ways that are fast, efficient and cost effective. An organization can reach its clients either through its own channels (store front), partner channels (major distributors), or a combination of both.

Customer Relationships: To ensure the survival and success of any businesses, companies must identify the type of relationship they want to create with their customer segments. Various forms of customer relationships include:

Personal Assistance: Assistance in a form of employee-customer interaction. Such assistance is performed either during sales, after sales, and/or both.

Dedicated Personal Assistance: The most intimate and hands on personal assistance where a sales representative is assigned to handle all the needs and questions of a special set of clients.

Self Service: The type of relationship that translates from the indirect interaction between the company and the clients. Here, an organization provides the tools needed for the customers to serve themselves easily and effectively.

Automated Services: A system similar to self-service but more personalized as it has the ability to identify individual customers and his/her preferences. An example of this would be Amazon.com making book suggestion based on the characteristics of the previous book purchased.

Communities: Creating a community allows for a direct interaction among different clients and the company. The community platform produces a scenario where knowledge can be shared and problems are solved between different clients.

Co-creation: A personal relationship is created through the customer’s direct input in the final outcome of the company’s products/services.

Finances

Cost Structure: This describes the most important monetary consequences while operating under different business models. A company’s DOC.

Classes of Business Structures:

Cost-Driven – This business model focuses on minimizing all costs and having no frills. e.g. SouthWest

Value-Driven – Less concerned with cost, this business model focuses on creating value for their products and services. e.g. Louis Vuitton, Rolex